Attorney General Troy King talks about Governor Riley's endorsement

Six years ago, when Bob Riley appointed me Attorney General, I believed he was a public servant dedicated to doing what was right.

At that time, he told me that the reason he was appointing me was because he knew that I would always follow the law.

And that is exactly what I have done every day since then, even when the Governor did not like it.

Since that time though, it has become clear that the Governor is really not that different from the rest of the politicians in Montgomery.

For example, because he had appointed the new Attorney General, the Governor believed he was now entitled to now run the Office of the Attorney General as well as the Governor’s Office.

No governor wants an independent attorney general, but that is what I have been.

In fact, that is what I believe that the people who hired me want and, until last week, that is what the Constitution required.

Over the past 6 years Governor Riley has asked me to issue official attorney general legal opinions to support his political positions – opinions that he knew, and that I knew, would be wrong.

For example, after Governor Riley was criticized for his decision to raise the taxes on Alabama families by ordering annual property tax reappraisals, he pressured me to issue an opinion to provide him with political cover for what he had done.

I refused to do so.

After I refused, a complaint was filed against me at the Alabama Bar Association.

They investigated and cleared me.

Then, a complaint was filed against me with the Alabama Ethics Commission over the same matters.

They also investigated me and found nothing wrong.

Finally, the same complaint was filed against me with the United States Attorney’s Office.

Eventually, like all the others, they also found no wrongdoing and cleared me.

These investigations (and the leaks from them that violate federal law) have become the foundation of Luther Strange’s sleazy television commercials.

Strange uses the headlines that the Montgomery establishment helped him get, but he dishonestly never points out that investigation after investigation after investigation found no wrong doing by me.

No one in Alabama has been subjected to more scrutiny, and time and time again the charges against me were proven false.

I know the cost of Governor Riley’s endorsement – a loyalty oath – not to the people but to the establishment politicians.

Now you know why I did not ask for it or get it.

The cost of the Governor’s endorsement for Luther Strange is a price that I have refused to pay for the past six years.

I refused to let Bob Riley and the Good Old Boys Club use the Attorney General’s Office for their personal and political ends.

And make no mistake, they don’t like it.

In Luther Strange, they have found a man who has already made that deal and pledged to blindly do the Governor’s bidding, just like all the other deals he’s been making as a lobbyist for the past 30 years.

I am asking the average citizens, those who aren’t part of the Good Old Boys Club, to consider one thing – if those in charge can use the law and the courts as a political tool to threaten anyone, even the Attorney General, then what makes you think any of us are safe.

The Governor joins the growing list of politicians for Luther Strange. We must ask ourselves why they have endorsed him. No doubt, it is because, for the last six years, I have refused to be bought or bullied.

I have already taken my stand and Paige, my family, and I have paid the price for it.

They know I won’t stand down and I won’t step aside.

But this election, like every election, is not about what the politicians want, but what the people want.

I ask the average, every day Republicans who play fair and believe honor is more important than power, to stand with me.

The big bosses who have been in charge for a long time, want to be in charge again.

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